Emerging Leadership in the Pauline Mission: A Social Identity Perspective on Local Leadership Development in Corinth and Ephesus

By Jack Barentsen and Philip Francis Esler

Where did Paul find leaders for his new churches? How did he instruct and develop them? What processes took place to stabilize the churches and institute their new leadership? This book carves a fresh trail in leadership studies by looking at leadership development from a group-dynamic, social identity perspective. Paul engages the cultural leadership patterns of his key local leaders, publicly affirming, correcting, and improving those patterns to conform to a Christlike pattern of sacrificial service. Paul's own life and ministry offer a motivational and authoritative model for his followers, because he embodies the leadership style he teaches. As a practical theologian avant la lettre, Paul contextualizes key theological themes to strengthen community and leadership formation, and equips his church leaders as entrepreneurs of Christian identity. A careful comparison of the Corinthian and Ephesian churches demonstrates a similar overall pattern of development. This study engages Pauline scholarship on church office in depth and offers alternative readings of five Pauline epistles, generating new insights to enrich dogmatic and practical theological reflection. In a society where many churches reflect on their missional calling, such input from the NT for contemporary Christian leadership formation is direly needed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Aug 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781630878139

Jack Barentsen

Jack Barentsen was born and raised in the Netherlands, served as missionary church planter in his native country and now serves as Associate Professor and Chair of Practical Theology at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit at Leuven, Belgium (www.etf.edu). He also serves as Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Ethics at ETF, speaking on leadership and offering consulting services to church leadership teams.

Book preview

9781610972444.kindle.jpg

Emerging Leadership in the Pauline Mission

A Social Identity Perspective on Local Leadership Development in

Corinth and Ephesus

Jack Barentsen

50418.png

EMERGING LEADERSHIP IN THE PAULINE MISSION

A Social Identity Perspective on Local Leadership Development in Corinth and Ephesus

Princeton Theological Monograph Series 168

Copyright © 2011 Jack Barentsen. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-244-4

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-813-9

Scripture quotations in Greek are from Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, et al. The Greek New Testament. 4th ed. Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1993. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations in English are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Olivier Klein, Russell Spears, Stephen Reicher, Social Identity Performance: Extending the Strategic Side of SIDE, Personality and Social Psychology Review (11:1), p. 41 (figure), copyright © 2007 by SAGE Publications. Chart reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Barentsen, Jack.

Emerging leadership in the Pauline mission : a social identity perspective on local leadership in Corinth and Ephesus / Jack Barentsen.

p. ; 23cm. —Includes bibliographical references and index(es).

Princeton Theological Monograph Series 168

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-244-4

1. Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Christian leadership—Biblical teaching. I. Title. II. Series.

bs2655 l42 b25 2011

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Princeton Theological Monograph Series

K. C. Hanson and Charles M. Collier, Series Editors

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To the countless and selfless national leaders,

who stepped into the shoes left behind by their missionary heroes

only to realize that these shoes were several sizes too big

but who did their very best

to serve their Lord and their churches

Foreword

by Philip Esler

Wherever we look in the New Testament and its world we encounter groups, assemblages of individuals who in some particular manner constitute an us. We find the most intimate of groups, the family, at one end of the spectrum and large ethnic groups like the Romans, Egyptians, and Judeans at the other. But in between there are also the inhabitants of towns and villages, local aristocracies, military units, trade associations, and people who revere a particular god. These are all groups whose fundamental sense of being an us in contrast to non-members who are them finds expression, often changing expression, in various ways. The primary group (or groups?) before our gaze in the New Testament are those people motivated by a belief that God has manifested himself in Jesus (the) Christ, a Judean from Nazareth in Galilee, who has revealed a path to salvation but with specific demands on those who would take it. There is no single epithet that captures the identity of these Christ-followers. They transcend the ties of ethnicity by including members from different ethnic groups; they gather in the houses of their members; and they live their lives in a distinctive fashion. While there is a powerful religious dimension to their identity, to speak of them as adherents of a religion would be anachronistic for this period. Yet it is not just the existence of groups that catches our attention, for it is also impossible to miss relationships between groups and among groups. When Paul says in Gal. 1:13 that I strenuously persecuted the assembly of God and tried to destroy it, we see an example of intergroup relations (here between the protector of his ethnic group and a new group of a different character) of an extreme type. First and Second Corinthians, on the other hand, are replete with phenomena of an intragroup type. Finally, the New Testament and its world inevitably provide examples of group leadership, where influential members of groups seek to have the membership move in a particular direction, or refrain from doing so, or take a recommended view on some issue, or refrain from taking it.

The abundance of such group data in the New Testament documents and in the context in which they were created poses a dilemma for interpreters. Should we simply rely upon our own experience of, and presuppositions concerning, groups and group phenomena, even if we have been socialised in individualistic North Atlantic cultures very different from those of the Mediterranean world of the first century CE? Or should we take the conscious step of informing ourselves of social-scientific research directly relevant to the group phenomena in these texts and the cultural context in which they were written? This choice first appeared for biblical interpreters in the 1970s with the arrival of the social sciences on the scene and it is with us still, in spite of the dubious claim, occasionally heard, that the job of social-scientific interpretation is done. It is a choice between reliance on folk psychology and the unexamined presuppositions of the interpreter on one hand, or application of readily available social-scientific ideas and perspectives on the other. By use of the social sciences an interpreter not only poses new questions to a biblical text, but is also able to organise the results of that process in a more socially realistic and historically satisfying manner.

In this fine volume, Dr. Jack Barentsen provides notable confirmation of the benefits of social-scientific interpretation, especially in the area of group phenomena. In social identity theory, initially developed by Henri Tajfel at the University of Bristol in the 1970s and now a thriving area of social psychology, he has happily found a resource that allows him to cast new light on a very wide range of Pauline (and arguably Pauline) data. He is especially concerned with the distinctive identities of Christ-following congregations founded by Paul and the ways in which he exercised leadership among them. His particular interest lies in how leadership emerges and is maintained, and in how (we are a long way from modern recruitment processes here!) a leader ensures appropriate succession. Central to the social identity approach to leadership is the need for the leader to be prototypical of group practices, values and beliefs if he or she is to be successful in managing the identity of the group and in influencing it to move in the desired direction. Dr. Barentsen has found a rich seam of data on this topic in the texts he surveys and is fully alive to the aptness of this understanding of leadership for modern ecclesial communities. His results witness to the more general phenomenon that interpreters conducting historical investigations of the New Testament using the social sciences (with the proper methodology) are more likely to return home with discoveries directly applicable to our modern setting than those who do not. In the end, then, Dr. Barentsen has produced a work of notably innovative historical exegesis that will also fertilize contemporary understandings of Christian identity and Christian leadership. It is an admirable achievement.

Preface

Discipleship and teamwork are two key ideas that have influenced my service as church-planting missionary, and teacher of New Testament and Practical Theology. The study of Paul’s leadership and the writing of this dissertation are no exception to that. I have grown immensely in my admiration for Paul, not only as theologian (as I was trained to see him), but also as a social strategist in forming his communities, and shaping their leadership amidst opposition from various sources. I have often wished that I had some of Paul’s insights in my earlier church-planting ministry. But then, Paul did not start the church-planting ventures that I have studied until he was about the age that I reached somewhere in the middle of this project. Perhaps, then, my journey as a disciple of Paul has only just begun!

This project involved a team of people, even though I spent countless hours alone with my books and my computer. I am deeply grateful to my wife Pat: without her understanding and support, I would have abandoned this project long ago. Thanks to my daughters Laura and Rebecca, budding teenagers when I started but now about to complete their own studies in higher education. They had to do without their dad many an evening and weekend. Thanks also to my parents and in-laws: your prayers and understanding have been very valuable. I also feel deeply grateful to our supporters in the USA, who have given sacrificially to make our ministry and thus also this research possible. Thanks to Martin Webber who as promoter kept on encouraging me to write the next analysis, the next chapter, and the next revision; to Philip Esler whose many NT publications with social identity theory inspired me in my approach and whose expert advice made this a better project; to Alex Haslam whose expertise as social psychologist helped me find my way in another discipline. The Evangelische Theologische Faculteit at Leuven (Belgium) provided a great environment for this project. Among my many colleagues, Gie Vleugels, Armin Baum, Patrick Nullens, and Pieter Boersema were especially helpful in their feedback and encouragement. Thanks to our Leuven group of promovendi who regularly poured over some of my texts, struggling to understand an approach so different from their own. So many other people provided practical help: Heidi McLaughlin, Joe Morell, and Boris Paschke assisted with editing; ETF librarian Marjorie Webber and mission personnel from Biblical Ministries Worldwide collected or shipped my books; mission leadership gave me time to finish the project before new ministry plans could be made; and so many friends from the Baptist Church in Maastricht encouraged and prayed for me. Thanks, finally, to the editorial team of Pickwick Publications, and their vision and guidance in making this study available for a wider audience. Nevertheless, even with all these words of thanks, I did not learn much from Paul if I did not pause here to honor God above everyone else as our Lord, our Provider, and our Sustainer throughout this whole project.

I hope and pray that this research will benefit church leaders everywhere as they struggle with how to contextualize the gospel in their time, place, and culture. How can we influence the group processes that determine how communities will develop? How can we develop local leadership that will grow stronger and more effective when they succeed the leaders that preceded them, whether they represent the foundational missionary leadership or previously established leadership? My research contains some of the answers as we can discover them from Paul. But much remains yet to be done in biblical studies, Practical Theology, and World Missions. The results now lay before the reader. May it encourage discipleship and teamwork in churches everywhere. And if perchance some would be especially interested in advancing research in these areas, you are cordially invited to get in touch.

Abbreviations

AB The Anchor Bible

AMR The Academy of Management Review

BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium

BIS Biblical Interpretation Series

BJM British Journal of Management

BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentary

BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin

COP Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum

DBAG Danker, Frederick W., et al. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

DPL G. F. Hawthorne. Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993

EDNT Balz, H. R., and G. Schneider. Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990

EQ Evangelical Quarterly

HTS Hervormde Theologische Studies

HThS Harvard Theological Studies

ICC International Critical Commentary

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JMS Journal of Management Studies

JPSP Journal of Personality & Social Psychology

JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSS Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

LN Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene A. Nida. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. 2 vols. 2nd ed. New York: United Bible Societies, 1989

LNTS Library of New Testament Studies

LQ The Leadership Quarterly

LSJ Liddell, Henry G., et al. A Greek-English Lexicon. 2 vols. 9th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996

NAC The New American Commentary

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament

NIGTC New International Greek Text Commentary

NT Novum Testamentum

PBM Paternoster Biblical Monographs

PSPB Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

PSPR Personality and Social Psychology Review

RQ Restoration Quarterly

SIMOL Social identity model of leadership

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

SP Sacra Pagina

TDNT The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 10 vols. Edited by G. Kittel, and G. Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76

TB Tyndale Bulletin

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

1

Introduction

Developing Patterns of Leadership

In an environment of major social change, leadership and group identity become key issues. Without question, the 21st century is such a period of major social change, which impacts every major social, political, and economic institution. The search for a new sense of national or ethnic identities in many parts of the world along with the rise of new international leaders is a sign of this social change. As the church participates in these times of change, renewal movements spark dozens of experimental forms of community and worship, for which traditional leadership structures are not always sufficient. A fresh look at individual communities and their leadership in the NT is needed to assist these renewal movements in their search for new forms of Christian identity and new patterns of leadership.

Traditionally, NT studies on church leadership have focused on church office as it developed in the NT and the few centuries afterwards. These studies often became an apology for the leadership structure of the denomination to which the author belonged. More recently, the application of social science approaches has unearthed a wealth of material about ancient patterns of leadership. Renewed study of NT leadership has pointed to a variety of people, functions, and norms involved, so that a broad scholarly consensus on a normative or apostolic pattern of leadership seems further away than ever. The only agreement seemed to be that the NT does not prescribe any one of these patterns as the universal norm for all churches. However, most of these studies have ignored the dimension of group dynamics in their study of leadership. Newer insights in leadership theory indicate that leadership is essentially a dynamic group phenomenon. These insights have yet to be applied consistently to a study of the first Christ-following communities and their patterns of leadership.

This study aims to contribute to the discussion by approaching leadership as a group phenomenon. A group is understood as a set of persons who all share a sense of us, of belonging together. This sense of us refers to the psychological processes that are at work within individuals as they join others in a group. This sense of us is shared, and revolves around group beliefs and norms, which function as the group’s ideology. Groups also develop social structures, first because they relate to other groups in their social context, but also because group members relate to one another, and not all group members are equally representative. Thus, some group members may gain more influence than others, occasioning the rise of group leaders and other roles from within the group. Groups are thus a complex mix of group ideology and social structures, which continuously interact with one another in response to changes in their social environment. Since leadership patterns develop within such a group setting, these patterns take shape and change due to social and psychological group processes as groups respond to their (changing) social environment. For the purposes of this study, the social and psychological processes will often be designated as historical and ideological factors, respectively.¹

This study, then, focuses on patterns of leadership as they develop within Pauline groups or communities. These developing patterns can be fruitfully studied by analyzing leadership emergence, maintenance, and succession. Leadership emergence refers to the ways a regular group member comes to be a group leader. Leadership maintenance discusses the ways established leaders maintain their influence, whether or not in competition with others. Leadership succession relates to the ways established leaders empower new leaders to emerge, either joining the established leaders or taking their places.

The study aims to trace the development of these leadership patterns by studying the social and psychological mechanisms that drive this development. The study aims to answer questions like, How did leaders relate to each other and to the community? How did leaders come to be in positions of leadership and authority? What processes were at work in the community to legitimate the authority and power differential between leaders and followers? What processes allowed leaders to transfer their authority or position to new leaders? These questions will point out how leadership patterns changed over time, and what social and psychological processes brought about these changes. The result is a portrayal of how these leadership patterns developed.

In sum, this study contributes to the ongoing reflection about church identity and leadership by focusing on developing patterns of leadership in some Pauline communities. The project is undertaken in the hope that it will contribute to a greater consensus in the field. A recent review, commenting on leadership in terms of ministry and church order, has noted:

Continued debate over the origin, shapes, and historical development of ministry and order in the early church appears to be as much an inevitability as death and taxes. Perhaps this is to be expected with an issue in which all ecclesial communions have such pronounced self-interests in justifying their own ecclesial orders. At the same time, the diverse and numerous exegetical, historical, social, and theological factors involved, combined with the less than fully clear nature of the literary sources, virtually guarantees a plethora of differing reconstructions, none of which has led yet to an overall consensus.²

Such is the challenge of the current study.

Pauline Correspondence to Corinth and Ephesus

The aim to study the development of patterns of leadership over time and across space requires a clearly defined chronological and geographical range. The geographical range is defined by the Pauline communities at Corinth and Ephesus, which offer a number of advantages for this study. First, Corinth and Ephesus represent two major locations of Paul’s Aegean ministry, where he and his missionary team founded new churches. This avoids difficult questions regarding, for instance, Antioch or Rome where Paul was involved, but where other founders could have significantly affected the available leadership strategies. Second, Paul’s work in these locations can be considered as his more mature efforts, coming almost twenty years after his conversion and at a time when he had at least ten years of cross-cultural ministry experience behind him. Third, these cities, located across the Aegean Sea from one another, represent major urban areas with many cultural, political, and religious links to Rome, to their own region, and to one another. This benefited the work of Paul’s missionary team, since they appear to have been in communication with most of the churches in the Aegean region (i.e., in Achaia, Macedonia, and Asia Minor) while ministering in any one of these locations. Both locations seem to have functioned as hubs in Paul’s Aegean network. Fourth, these social networks established by Paul, his coworkers, and other traveling believers imply that significant developments in one location most likely did not escape notice in the other locations. In Corinth, they heard of some of Paul’s difficulties in Ephesus, while the Ephesian community undoubtedly followed Paul’s involvement in the Corinthian troubles with great interest. Fifth, the Corinthian and Ephesian communities are the recipients of several Pauline letters, 1–2 Corinthians, and Ephesians and 1–2 Timothy. Sixth, with the recent increase of interest in socio-historical methods, inscriptions, and archaeology, the cultural landscape of these cities has been extensively studied, reflected in commentaries and with handbooks now readily available for more general use.³ Finally, these two locations have not often been compared in scholarly studies of the last few decades, providing an opportunity to study development across a geographical range that has not received significant attention of late. Of course, a significant obstacle for comparing these two Pauline communities is that the Pauline letters addressed to Ephesus are often considered post-Pauline, which leads to a clearer definition of the next parameter for this study.

The chronological range is defined by the date of composition of the letters to the locations, in this study taken to date from 55 through 66 CE. The dating of 1 and 2 Corinthians is generally not problematic, except for an occasional multiple source theory for 2 Corinthians. However, the scholarly consensus on the authorship of Ephesians is about equally divided between Pauline and second generation post-Pauline authorship⁴; the scholarly consensus on 1 and 2 Timothy holds predominantly to third generation post-Pauline authorship, although this is vigorously contested in a series of recent English commentaries.⁵ Remarkably, only the Asian side of the Pauline corpus is often considered pseudepigraphal. Different authorship proposals date 1–2 Timothy in the middle ’60s, the ’80s–’90s or even the 120–40s. Since the Ephesian community was founded in 52–53, these proposals date 1–2 Timothy some 10–15, 30–40 or even 70–90 years later. Although these differences may not seem much in two millennia of church history, relative to the founding date they are huge and result in significantly different reconstructions of community and leadership development. Since this study engages questions concerning social structures and developing patterns of leadership, a relatively secure date for the sources is imperative. Since, moreover, this study is based on the minority position of Pauline authorship of Ephesians and 1–2 Timothy, some basic argumentation will be provided to indicate the evidential support for this view, sufficient to undergird the credibility of the social reconstructions built upon it, but without attempting to argue the matter exhaustively.⁶

These geographical and chronological limitations have some disadvantages. The study does not take into account the earlier stages of Paul’s ministry from Antioch to Galatia, nor does it consider Romans with its rich understanding of leadership, and even some of the Pauline sources from his Aegean ministry (i.e. 1–2 Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Titus) remain unaddressed. In addition, issues concerning the role of women in Paul’s leadership strategies receive attention only when they appear to affect the overall pattern of leadership, without focusing especially on the issue. Given the sensitivities around this issue, this is better left to more dedicated studies.

The research question for the study can now be formulated as follows:

According to the Pauline letters addressed to Corinth and Ephesus, what were the leadership patterns in these early Christ-following communities, and how did the communities as well as Paul influence the development of these patterns?

The Social Identity Model of Leadership

Typically, studies on leadership in the Pauline letters consider the historical and ideological factors separately. Either they focus on the socio-historical structures of Pauline leadership by comparing it to other ancient leadership structures, or they focus on the ideological aspects of Pauline leadership by studying Paul’s principles, methods or theology of leadership.⁷ The relationship between the historical and ideological factors has not yet been systematically analyzed, nor has it been adequately recognized how one factor influences and shapes the other.

This study employs the social identity model of leadership to study this interaction between historical and ideological factors. Social identity theory is a widely accepted academic theory from the disciplines of social and cognitive psychology, which uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods. It spans a wide variety of group-related phenomena and variables, providing a sufficient methodological basis for the study of leadership. The social identity model of leadership (SIMOL) describes the social position of group members relative to one another, and thus of the leader(s) relative to other group members. The model also describes the psychological processes that underpin the development of social positions within the group. Although SIMOL does not directly analyze organizational structures (as a sociological study might do), it analyzes the social and psychological processes that underpin such structural developments. It was on this basis that this chapter opened with the proposition that leadership is a dynamic group phenomenon that related to group or social identity.⁸

SIMOL offers a number of ways to integrate various aspects of leadership research into NT studies. First, SIMOL brings innovative research models from social psychology and leadership theory into biblical studies. An independent familiarity with these theories is necessary to apply the model, since applications so far are rare in NT studies. Second, SIMOL has shown that groups and their leaders are very sensitive to social context. Thus, SIMOL benefits from the wealth of socio-historical and cultural information about the first century that has been discovered and analyzed in recent decades; without such information, the social context would remain too undefined to be able to apply SIMOL. Third, SIMOL analyzes the connections between social reality and psychological processes, and thus offers a method to study the interaction between Pauline rhetoric and the social reality he addresses. Hermeneutically, this implies that it is possible to derive socio-historical information from Paul’s ideological rhetoric with SIMOL as a guide.

In biblical studies, only a handful of scholars have taken notice of the social identity theory and related theories from social and cognitive psychology. Those who have done so have found that it shed new light on the subject under investigation.⁹ More recently, interest in questions regarding early Christian identity has received a significant impulse from some research projects in Scandinavian countries.¹⁰ The current study fits well within this burgeoning field.

An important aspect of methodology is critical reflection on the personal pre-commitments of the researcher. From the preface, it is evident that this project approaches Paul from the perspective of a sympathetic reader. This will no doubt influence the project along the way. The challenge is not so much to achieve a disinterested point of view, which is generally acknowledged to be impossible,¹¹ but to account adequately for one’s pre-commitments so that they do not as unquestioned presuppositions dictate the results obtained. In many ways, this is in itself an exercise in social identification: does the researcher consider himself as belonging to the types of communities Paul founded? A positive answer indicates that he is predisposed to value Paul’s perspective on the social identity of these communities, while a negative answer likewise predisposes the scholar to be critical of Paul’s vision of social identity. In our social universe, we only have these two options: to belong to the ingroup or the outgroup, but with varying levels of identification and commitment.¹² The challenge in research is not to seek a detached scholarly stance (which by its very nature implies an outsider perspective), but to reflect adequately on one’s own presuppositions and group memberships in order to discern its effect on our scholarly stance. Whether or not a researcher identifies with Paul, the level of scholarship is defined by the level of critical reflection on the historical sources as well as on one’s pre-commitments and group memberships, not necessarily by the level of criticism of Paul’s vision of social identity.¹³

Definitions

A few matters of definition are needed to keep the discussion clear.

Significant debate surrounds the labels Jew, Christian, and church. In modern usage these labels indicate two distinct religions, but this is hardly what first century Jews and Christians had in mind. Thus, Esler argues for labels like Christ-believer or Christ-follower instead of Christian, which he considers a Latin label by outsiders for Christ-believers. Furthermore, he argues that Ἰουδαῖοι should be translated as the ethnic Judeans, not as Jew with its anachronistic religious overtones, and that ἔθνη should be translated as foreigner or, when used by a Judean, as heathen. The early church is labeled as Christ-movement.¹⁴ Campbell voices similar concerns and proposes slightly different labels.¹⁵ Runesson, however, argues that modern Jewish and Christian groups are sufficiently continuous with the earlier groups thus labeled, so that the use of the labels Jew and Christian remains defensible as long as they are situated in the right context.¹⁶ Since this study does not have relationships between Jewish and gentile Christ-believers or between the church and the synagogue as its main subject, these labels are of less importance. Occasionally, Christ-follower and Christ-movement will be used to avoid prejudging questions about community formation and group identity, while Jew and gentile will be retained as ethnic markers. The term Christian will frequently appear in Christian social identity since the social identity of the Christ-movement is too cumbersome.

Another matter of definition relates to the distinction between leadership office and leadership position. Leadership structures may be instituted as a formal organizational office, which is a theoretical organizational slot that a group member (or even an outsider) may occupy, by virtue of which he or she has authority to direct the group. This slot usually involves provisions for appointment, ordination, duration, payment, and abdication in the language of church or canon law. The office and its occupant(s) are generally perceived as divinely legitimated to serve the community.¹⁷ Although office is an important aspect of the Pauline patterns of leadership, it indicates little about the early development of these patterns and is not the exclusive focus of this study. On the other hand, this study frequently refers to certain leaders and their position of social influence within their particular group. Their leadership may be legitimated in various ways and may be exercised with significant social power, so that the leader occupies a definable social position within that group. Interactive group processes between more and less prototypical group members generate this position of influence; the position does not necessarily exist as an abstract slot in the organizational structure apart from such processes. It is possible but not necessary that such a position of social influence is formalized in the group by some or all of the features that constitute an organizational office. Thus, the study focuses on the social position of leadership, which is a broader category than leadership office.

Finally, in a study on developing leadership, gendered references may be particularly sensitive. As a matter of convention, this study uses the third person masculine form he to refer to individuals generically without gender distinction, instead of randomly alternating between he and she or using the cumbersome he or she or even s/he.

The Plan of the Book

This study proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 reviews the history of scholarship on church leadership. Monepiscopacy was considered the normative pattern of church leadership until the Reformation when the debate divided along denominational lines. Scholars often discovered their own denominational leadership structure in the sources so it was suspected that, in spite of progress in historical research, the debate was often unintentionally guided by denominational ideology. When the debate changed to more social-scientific approaches, the initial result was that sociological models replaced the earlier denominational ideology, projecting modern sociological instead of denominational views onto ancient sources. As social-scientific approaches matured, notably in the area of cultural anthropology, much fruitful research was done on the Mediterranean culture of the first century, analyzing its community and leadership structures. In the last two decades, theories from social and cognitive psychology have been tested to study ancient community structures in their Roman, Jewish, and Christian contexts. This sets the stage for the present study, building on the accomplishments of historical research and on the theoretical advances of social and cognitive psychology, to study leadership as a dynamic group phenomenon.

Chapter 3 presents the particular theoretical model used, the social identity model of leadership (SIMOL). From its origins in the late 1960s, social identity theory has become a broadly accepted research model, spilling over in and connecting with identity research in the fields of organizational psychology, organizational identity and behavior, and sociology. Leadership theory is one of several beneficiaries of this fruitful and continuing expansion.¹⁸ The model is presented in two stages. The first stage presents the concept of social identity, which refers to a person’s sense of us, of belonging to a particular group. Social identities take shape through social comparison, which often center on stereotyped or prototypical representatives of these groups. Social identification is a dynamic process in which individuals identify with a particular group, depending on the comparison outgroup and on the characteristics considered prototypical in that situation. The identity narrative of a group provides cohesion over time, enabling members to maintain, deepen or weaken their commitment to the group. Their level of commitment influences to what extent group members conform to group norms for the way they think and behave. The second stage presents leadership as the ability to manage social identity and to embed people in that identity. Leaders emerge in a group if they embody the group’s values and serve its interests more than other members, i.e. if they are more prototypical than others. Leaders maintain their leadership by managing the group’s social identity, and by mobilizing and empowering group members so that they become embedded in that identity. Successful leaders are viewed increasingly as charismatic, which earns them the social power to initiate succession by similar, prototypical leaders, and which extends their influence beyond their own span of leadership.

Chapters 4 through 8 apply SIMOL to a study of the selected sources, 1–2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and 1–2 Timothy. Each chapter introduces the letter and briefly situates the letter in Paul’s ministry. Group and leadership aspects of the letter are studied afresh with social identity theory as an investigative framework to shed new light on the existing debate about patterns of leadership. First, the processes of social identification are surveyed in each letter to discern the group processes taking place (as Paul understood them). Second, the role of the leaders is studied in how they shaped these processes of identification, discussing both local and Pauline leadership. These considerations make it possible, third, to describe more clearly the processes of leadership emergence, leadership maintenance, and leadership succession. This leads finally to conclusions about the patterns of leadership (in terms of people, functions, and norms) at the time of the composition of each letter, which can then be fruitfully compared with earlier studies on Pauline patterns of leadership.

As these chapters proceed, the pictures of social identification and of patterns of leadership in Corinth and Ephesus are increasingly developed. In Corinth (chapter 4), the emergence of local leaders in a harmoniously functioning collegial group failed initially. Local leadership became divided because of the formation of subgroups parallel to cultural conventions, which marginalized Paul. Other cultural values caused conflicts of interest between Christian and non-Christian social identities. Even their basic community activities, such as the Lord’s Supper and broad participation were threatened by these factors. Paul’s letter to correct the situation (1 Corinthians) was probably not effective, since it arrived at about the same time as itinerant Jewish teachers, who responded to the same difficulties by offering a more Jewish vision of social identity (focusing on Moses) and who functioned in a more culturally acceptable leadership model (letters of recommendation, accepting patronage) (chapter 5). Apparently, the local leaders did unite, but around this more Jewish vision of social identity, which almost completely sidelined Paul. Through a personal painful visit, a lost tearful letter, and the mediation of Titus, Paul negotiated reconciliation with the Corinthian church, including restoration of his role as founding apostle and teacher of the gospel. Another letter (2 Corinthians) reflects the content of the negotiations, written just before Paul could personally arrive to put the reconciliation into effect. Paul’s confidence in the reconciliation suggests that local leaders had now unitedly rallied to Paul’s support, although a few opponents remained. With Paul’s apostleship and leadership finally accepted in Corinth, he could serve as model for these united local leaders as their leadership stabilized in Corinth around Paul’s gospel and vision of Christian social identity.

The study of Ephesians (chapter 6) begins with a brief review of arguments for Pauline authorship and an Ephesian destination to help locate this letter in its social environment. Paul’s stature as charismatically legitimated leader grew especially in Ephesus, as the community observed his successful negotiations in Corinth. This empowered Paul to write from a Roman prison, surrounded by symbols of Roman ideology, to the Ephesian church. From that social and geographical distance, Paul portrayed a stable local leadership subgroup in Ephesus that had established titles and functions, and that was divinely legitimated in their functions of teaching and oversight. Their leaders maintained the unity and cohesion of the community, as they lived out Paul’s vision of Christian social identity, which was defined and expanded to empower group members to live out their identity in a context with competing Jewish identities, and Greco-Roman institutions and ideology.

The study of 1–2 Timothy (chapters 7 and 8) required a more extensive review of the debate about their authorship and date, since this significantly affects the socio-historical setting, which is the basis for a social identity analysis. The self-testimony of the letters and their external attestation unanimously point to Pauline authorship. The ancients considered pseudepigraphy forgery and dedicated much of their literary criticism to verifying authorial claims to guard against such deception. The scribal practice of authors to keep personal copies even of their letters, as well as the oral traditions about authorship accompanying ‘published’ works provided additional safeguards, making it very unlikely that the Pastoral Epistles would have escaped detection if they were non-Pauline. A number of important differences between the Pastorals and Paul’s early letters are reviewed next. Recent linguistic theory indicates that the observed literary differences could be classified as a more literary style in the Pastorals compared to a style closer to speech in the earlier Paulines. Theological differences can be credibly attributed to differences in contextualization at Corinth and Ephesus. Historical differences are most likely complementary to the data from Acts and Paul’s other epistles. This review is sufficient to warrant the position of the present study that the Pastorals are Pauline and can be situated towards the end of Paul’s life and ministry.

After his release from prison, Paul visited Ephesus again and left Timothy as long-term delegate, perhaps because of lessons learned in Corinth (chapter 7). Even though some deviance in leadership remained (unlike the portrayal in Ephesians), Paul instructed Timothy mainly (in 1 Timothy) in how to maintain local leadership, by keeping it aligned with God’s mission with the church, and by providing procedures for appointment, payment, and impeachment. This suggests a functioning subgroup of local leaders (the presbyterion), functioning on a collegial level with one another, where the main issues are how to provide for their faithful continuity and maintenance, alongside other subgroups (notably widows) who also participate in the community. Paul instructs Timothy in leadership function to provide a model of leadership in a setting where Greco-Roman and Jewish identities continue to compete for influence. It was shown in the concluding summary that ‘overseer’ and ‘elder’ referred to the same leader from different perspectives, and that ‘overseer’ and ‘deacon’ were fully constituted offices, although they were still mostly connected with the person providing the leadership than with an abstract organizational slot. The role of women in leadership was limited to the household sphere.

Finally, Paul writes Timothy again (2 Timothy), once more from a Roman prison, to effect leadership succession (chapter 8). Paul’s high status as apostolic leader raises Timothy’s leadership status, because of his close association with and similarity to Paul, a process that Paul intentionally boosts by portraying Timothy’s relationship to himself as parallel to Joshua’s relationship to Moses. Paul’s instructions to Timothy, to teach his gospel to new leaders and to serve as a gentle model to the community in his leadership, do not so much inform Timothy as they provide a model for local leaders as well as an indirect critique of some deviant local leaders. Thus, Paul guides the maintenance and institutes the succession of local leadership through the mediation of Timothy as delegate and successor. Thus, Paul did not write 1–2 Timothy to instruct the recipient, but to vindicate him before his critics and to mobilize the community as well as the critics to accept Timothy. The rhetorical setting of these letters also indicates that they focus on the concerns of the leadership subgroup, not those of the whole church, which explain the use of stereotypes and of household metaphors.

With chapters 4 through 8 thus completed, chapter 9 summarizes the results, compares the leadership patterns in Corinth with those in Ephesus, and offers the conclusions to this study. The comparison suggests several observations that further refine the above picture of the developing patterns of leadership. First, Paul worked generally with whatever cultural forms of leadership were available, but consistently redefined leadership as self-sacrifice for the community in the service of the gospel, aligning it with the beliefs and values of Christian social identity. Second, in both locations local leaders were repeatedly corrected in their construction of Christian social identity and their leadership, although tension and damage from Jewish teachers and Greco-Roman identity were more severe in Corinth than later in Ephesus. Third, the Corinthian and Ephesian communities both developed a similar pattern of collegial leadership, although the available evidence indicates stages of leadership emergence in Corinth and stages of leadership maintenance and succession in Ephesus. It will be argued that this is to be interpreted as successive